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Widely regarded as the greatest entrance in movie lore – and he remains utterly motionless.

The FBI trainee, just starting out, navigates a corridor of cells until she reaches Dr. Lecter's transparent prison. He is positioned, appearing as an animated death's head exuding demonic evil, unnervingly still clad in a tight blue prison jumpsuit. He doesn't move before suddenly he throws himself toward the window, producing that distinctive snarling-hissing noise. Numerous documentaries on serial killers have since revealed that genuine criminals are usually uninteresting, lacking anything like Hopkins' powerful on-screen charisma.

He was not a newcomer at the time he got the part that won him an Oscar in the iconic film during the late 80s: he was already established, but rather a megastar emerged. His Dr. Lecter was based, Hopkins notes with amusement in this new autobiography, from Lugosi's Dracula, on the Soviet leader as recalled by his daughter, and also from his strictly demanding acting coach his mentor Fettes. The scenes also contained a parent-child dynamic to these scenes; a difficult topic for Anthony, who also describes how his Lear was indirectly affected by an agonised guilt concerning Abigail, the estranged daughter from his failed first union during the 60s with Petronella Barker, who disliked him being away and drinking.

The title originates from an old wartime photo of a young Hopkins playing on the sand with his father – the kid who maybe thought he wouldn't succeed. He was a bewildered, shy and fragile youth from Port Talbot, his father was Richard Arthur Hopkins, the memorable figure in the narrative: a bread-maker and a traditional male, a plain speaker who despised the Bible-punching hypocrites of the chapel and refused to showing his emotions, but had a streak of dreamy, sentimental tenderness. His father who was angered by the way they had to go begging to affluent family members such as Aunt Patty, who was connected to the famous Bevan and could get Anthony as a boy into a posh school: “Since they are extremely wealthy!” he exclaims in the car on the way there. “We're all hoping for some pickings! Bloody rubbish, that's what it is!”

The humility worked, for a time. Hopkins was a hopeless student at the prestigious school. However, one day in a literature class he needed to deliver John Masefield's poem The West Wind – without prior preparation – and his talent emerged; he amazed the instructor and the other students. He reasonably claims that poems, alone, launched him. This, and joining the YMCA theater group. Remarkably, he left school a no-hoper, entered the acting world, and amazingly to his parents, was on stage with Laurence Olivier at the Old Vic in just ten years. He accomplished it mostly independently, although in those days financial aid was available to attend Rada – a way up for performers from modest means. His father was always amazed by his son's international fame: on asking his son to deliver the Yorick lines from Shakespeare's Hamlet, Hopkins Sr listened attentively and then left the room and wept openly.

As for the hot-tempered, stubborn individual, he departed the theatrical troupe in a moment of anger – to Olivier's profound dismay and disapproval – but fortunately found an excellent television part as a potential war criminal in the series QB VII, which eventually resulted to characters including in the film The Elephant Man and a thriving starry career in movies, that he favored over theater. He gave up alcohol back in 1975 having been a hell-raising alcoholic, and managed to live into middle age to execute great performances, including Lecter, the servant Stevens in The Remains of the Day featuring Emma Thompson and the senior with memory loss in his film The Father – his second Academy Award.

In the latter half of the memoir his personality becomes more opaque, more deliberate. Certain stories fall a bit flat. He remembers having lunch alongside his cast mate in Stone's Nixon, the esteemed thespian Sorvino, who intended to inform him his performance as Nixon wasn't working. Was this the opportunity for Anthony to gain insight advice from the renowned performer of the Goodfellas fame? Hardly. He tends to concur with Stone's dismissal of Sorvino as being motivated due to resentment. Truly?

He often portrays the no-nonsense, practical performer who believes you must to arrive punctually, remember every crew member's name and proceed with the work. Quite so. But he also recounts confronting an obnoxious director who'd made a young extra cry: “Apologise to her! And acquire some decency. If you ever repeat that near me, I'll alter your appearance!” He appears to be a person who quit alcohol but possibly not the combativeness that went with it. An actor of his caliber must know Cornwall's lines on Kent from the play Lear: “He is incapable of flattery! A truthful and simple spirit – he must speak truth!”

Anthony ends his memoir with a lengthy appendix composed simply